


Headcanons

by GraceEliz



Series: Eternities [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Self-Harm, TW: depression/depression references, TW: suicide references, batfam, personal headcanons, please heed the tags and take care of yourselves okay xx
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-09-05 03:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16802425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz
Summary: A collection of personal bits about the Batfam, written and updated as I realise them.





	1. Dick & "Dad"

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, if someone you think should make an appearance doesn't, let me know. I may have forgotten them. I maybe haven't, but check anyway.  
> Also tell me any typos you see. I hate bad grammar.

Sometimes Dick forgets where he’s going. That’s okay, because it’s how brains work: you leave one room and your brain – much like many driving instructors – bursts out with NEW ROOM NEW DANGERS and completely forgets to pick up that pile of books in the kitchen you need to do your homework in lieu of doing something sensible such as getting a drink. Thing is, Dick does it all the time. Every time he gets up, he runs the risk of forgetting why he’s even in this room in the first place. Bruce recommended writing on his hands and arms in some kind of code so that he has subtle prompts to remind him of important things. So there are pens in every single room of the Manor, and paper too most of the time. Dick got such a handle on it that his brothers completely forget about it, until he has what he calls a Moment and forgets. They’re all good at helping out, so it isn’t a problem.

*-*-*-*

Bruce wasn’t “Dad” to any of his sons at first. He never tried to be called “Dad” by Dick, even when everyone could see it absolutely made his day when Dick ran up and called him Dad. Almost everyone thinks it was Jason who called him dad the most: it was actually a pretty even split between Dad and B, because in his mind there was no real distinction. He was B and he was his dad, and for a while that was enough. (Hood once yelled at Batman for getting injured and accidentally called him Dad. Nobody really talks about how B froze and cried himself to sleep that night.) 

Tim had a dad but Bruce has always loved him as his own son, and nothing made him angrier than his sons being ignored by those who profess to love them. He never forgave the Drakes for that. (He first met Tim as a baby, and went home to Alfred very quiet. After that, Bruce took every possible chance to interact with the boy who quickly became ‘my baby Tim’. He cried for days when Tim was sent to school aged 5 and even more when Tim returned and didn’t remember him.) Now, he takes every opportunity to have Tim home with him and eats lunch with him at WE when possible.  
It’s actually Cass who calls him Dad most. She belongs to him. He’s her Bruce, she’s his Cass. They both talk in actions not words, both will die and harm for those they love, and they are eerily able to communicate with a single glance. She knows she scares her brothers and sister sometimes, but she doesn’t hold it against anyone, especially Steph. They’re sisters in spirit but their souls are very different. Anyway, Cass loves Bruce with all her heart. She sleeps in his bed more than any other, uses his shower, and loves to use his shower gel because for her he is home and safety. When she smells like him she feels so much safer, and it helps her remember that she has a home – father, brothers, sister, grandfather.

Steph has only called him Dad once, and they’ve never spoken about it, she knows however that if she even looks like she needs him he’ll be right there, whether she needs Bruce, Brucie or Batman. She’s his, and he’d claim her as his daughter if he could.

Damian is a strange one. He always calls Bruce “Father”, which is fine and they both know how loved they are, but Damian takes after Bruce. He gets on well with Cass, because he doesn’t need words with her. Dick was good for him, Bruce thinks, because he’s far more articulate than he was at his age (Bruce avoids talking about the dark years between losing his parents and bringing Katia into the Manor). Tim might indeed be Bruce’s baby, but Damian is his youngest. The boys had to work things out between themselves, but they’ve reached an accord, and are willing to let Bruce coddle them both when he needs his two youngest near him.  
He still doesn't get called Dad by Damian.


	2. Knife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guys TW for self-harm, tears, and suicide-depression references. It's taken me a long time to write because I just wasn't happy with it but this is it now. More to be posted when written as another chapter. Heed for triggers, folks. Take care. Summary in endnotes.

Dick never leaves sharp knives or batarangs lying around. He started almost obsessively tidying up about a year after Bruce took him in. It’s habit now.  
Jason will - but always where he can see them. He tidies up before he leaves the room. Even after Ethiopia and all the crap afterwards he knows exactly where all his – anyone's – blades are. (He tears into Dick when he finds knives all over the house, and it frightens the others, except Bruce and Alfred.)

Tim was told by Dick to never leave mess in the cave or kitchen. His room, fine, but blades had to be in a safe area. He thought he knew why – definitely knows, now – but never asked.

Cassandra didn’t need to be told. She can read it in her family’s bodies, but she doesn’t understand it until after one awful patrol Bruce hadn’t been on. He appeared for breakfast pale and drawn – with livid red scratches on both arms. Alfred dropped a mug, Dick looked ready to cry, and Jason immediately snatched all sharp knives off the table. He yelled, loudly, but Bruce was silent.

Steph kind of understood, but it’s that breakfast when she realises how bad it can actually get.

Damian doesn’t know for quite a few years. Dick sits him down when he first arrives and tells him that he can keep his assortment of blades on one condition: they are kept locked away. (He ignores it, and cries where he’s hidden to listen in when Jason screams at Dick for letting Bruce be at such risk for so long. Damian was just trying to be safe.)

**

The first time Dick realises that Bruce has an issue with knives is about three months into his stint as Robin. He’s known Bruce a little under a year, knows that the best treatment for depressive episodes is to ground him by laying – sprawling – across him. He knows that Alfred loves him, and loves Bruce, and suspects Bruce is aware that Alfred would kill for them.

The Manor is Alfred’s turf.

Dick watches Bruce tidying the cave, putting uniforms away and uploading tonight’s reports. He’s been pottering about maybe half an hour and Dick is almost asleep curled into one of Bruce’s huge cashmere jumpers. He blinks his eyes slowly open, blurrily drifts his gaze towards the man he’s increasingly coming to see as a dad figure, nuzzles into the night-blue cashmere. He frowns as he focusses in on Bruce – he's just sort of...stopped.

There’s a razor-sharp batarang in Bruce’s left hand, and he’s caressing the cutting edge with his other fingers. It’s his eyes that worry Dick the most: empty, dazed, as far away as any depressive episode. Bruce touches one bat-wing point to his right wrist, moves his hands oh-so-slightly - 

-and startles, dropping the batarang with a tinny clatter on the cave floor. He seems to be waking up somehow, and his faces creases in regret and guilt when he sees the worry and fear clouding Dick’s innate light.

He moves quickly to his boy, wrapping him up close when Dick throws his arms around Bruce’s neck with a sob and buries his head against his shoulder. He whispers apologies into the soft dark hair that smells like his shampoo and rocks gently back and forth.

Alfred knows as soon as he sees Bruce carry Dick into the kitchen that something’s happened. He makes them all hot chocolate, sits beside Bruce as they drink. Dick refuses to shift away from Bruce, clinging like a baby koala, so Alfred tucks the pair of them into Bruce’s bed, smoothing dark hair from blue eyes. Dick reminds him of Bruce, and Alfred is thankful that he’s not as unhappy a child. Both his boys sleep close together, and Dick never leaves batarangs lying around again. 

**

Jason is a lot better at cooperating with his family now. He’s accepted that he is indeed a Bat, that Bruce is his dad and Alfie his granddad and the others are his siblings. But sometimes he forgets how much things have changed over the years. Bruce is so completely different. He once heard Dick explain to Damian that “There have been loads of Bruces: baby Bruce, teenage Bruce, gone Bruce, BatBruce, first-time-dad Bruce, post-Ethiopia Bruce, healing Bruce, dead Bruce, recovering-from-being-dead Bruce and Now Bruce.” Steph sniggers, Damian rolls his eyes at Dick. It’s funny but too true to really make Jason laugh. The truth is that he is still deeply uncomfortable with how flippant some of the Batkids are about death. He died, sure, and a few of them make death jokes all the time, but Bruce being dead isn’t something funny. There is a reason that Clark gets tense when he overhears kids being facetious about dying and suicide (Clark knows it’s kind of a thing that is some sort of massive inside joke to the “gen Z”, and he’s okayish with that because kids and people in general are great, but the Bats are his family too and it’s a bit too close to the bone). 

There’s a reason Alfred keeps sharp knives in a drawer that locks. There’s a reason Jason absolutely lost it at Dick when Damian had been leaving knives around the house.

He’s still afraid, even though it started so long ago. 

~

Bruce doesn’t try to hide his scars. Jason knows who he is, has seen him in action, and knows after only a few weeks living with them that Alfred is most of the reason Bruce is still breathing. What worries Jason today is the way Bruce doesn’t try to hide the marks left by zip ties around his left wrist after a run-in with a surprisingly prepared mob boss from Bludhaven. Bruce whirls into the kitchen as he’s eating breakfast and discussing Shakespearean London with Alf. When he reaches across the table for his coffee, his sleeves ride up enough for Jason to catch sight of the criss-crossing red welts. 

“Wait B,” he orders, grabbing at Bruce’s sleeve to hold him back as he lurches towards the door to get to WE for a meeting. “You haven’t done anything about the scratches. What if someone asks? Do you have an excuse? You can’t rely on not getting noticed,” Jason presses in concern. Bruce softens as he draws his son close to him. He smiles sadly, regretfully, murmuring, “Nobody is going to ask, Jay, but if they do... I was a very troubled teen. Publicly. Nobody will suspect I got them being Batman.” Jason is left horrified at the implication that Bruce used to cut himself, and is remains that way as Bruce hurtles out of the room and yells goodbye and slams the door behind him.   
When Jason looks up at Alf, the butler’s brow is furrowed with age and stress. He decides he’s not bringing it up now, but he knew a girl in his old building who drew lines on her skin with whatever sharp edge she could find. They found her bled out in her tiny bathroom. 

Jason finds himself panicky at the thought that could happen to Bruce. The bubble roils in his stomach all day, progressing to an all-consuming something that he denies being terror. He finds himself, by three o’clock, in Bruce’s ensuite ratching around in the unit for anything that could be a danger. The razors are Alfred-approved, there are no knives, the mirror is likely shatterproof. It’s a relief but it isn’t enough. Next is the bedroom, but hunting in Bruce’s personal drawers and cupboards makes guilt rise into the space left by what little panic has abated, so he leaves the search at the most likely places. He finds nothing. 

The library, the study, the bathroom downstairs, all as safe as he and Alfred could make it. Jason hesitates at the door to the kitchen. He’s fairly sure that Alfie keeps sharp knifes locked in their drawer. When it comes to Bruce, fairly sure isn’t enough, because Bruce is Batman and not invincible and more importantly he’s Jason’s and Jason isn’t letting him go. Alfred is rattling around, sorting crockery by the sound of it, and so Jason hesitates to enter. He does though, and hovers near the sink as Alfred finishes putting plates in the cupboard and turns to him, wiping his hands on a tea towel. 

“Master Jason. Is there something you need, lad?” Alfred has always been kind and he cares about Bruce so much, so Jason breathes in. The words won’t leave his chest, and he squawks in desperate frustration before marching to the knife drawer and yanking at it. The drawer rattles but stays closed, and the something bursts inside Jason and he falls to his knees as his vision blurs and his breath catches and sticks and oh god his dad has tried to kill himself before he can tell he can feel it and why did dickface leave Bruce alone it isn’t fair or safe and what if – 

“-ster Jason, listen to me. Follow my breathing, young lad, in and out, that’s right, calm yourself down,” Alfred soothes, offering his hand for the boy, his second grandson, who clings to him. The tears have smeared all over his face and hands and so Alfred offers the tea towel, gently wipes away the mess. He considers how best to approach the matter. “Young Master Jason, may I inquire as to what has you in such distress? You may find I have some capacity for aid,” Alfred trails off slightly when he sees Jason is not at all calmed. Jason looks up with a desperate light in his eyes and begs, “Alfie, tell me Bruce is gonna be okay, cause he- he-“ Jason chokes on the words and hides in the towel. Alfred sighs and settles on the floor. 

“Master Bruce will be alright. That’s not to say he won’t have bad times or that it will be easy for us, but Master Dick has helped him to accept himself, and you have been a godsend. Perhaps you have noticed a change in Batman’s demeanour recently. He gets a tad too – self-destructive when left alone for too long. I cannot join him in the field, so Robin does, but I can fight the darkness in the house. You can help,” assures Alfred when Jason lifts his head and opens his mouth to retort to some part of the speech, “because Master Bruce does listen to you. Come. I will show you some of the measures taken to ensure his continued well-being.”

By time Bruce comes home at seven, Alfred and Jason have been working together for over an hour, and the terror has retreated back into concern. Jason leaps on Bruce as soon as he lays eyes on him, and clings around his Dad’s neck like a baby koala. Bruce wraps his arms around his son, and raises his eyebrows at Alfred. Alfred allows his shoulders to curve slightly and the weariness of the day to show on his face. Bruce frowns, and holds his boy tight. Jason has never forgot the relief he felt when Bruce came home – at least, he thinks he hasn’t. The Pits messed with his head a bit. He remembers being upset that the Bat was seemingly trying to get himself killed but he definitely remembers crying with that same old relief when Bruce came back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary:  
> Dick is a very young Robin when he first sees Bruce phase out holding a batarang to his wrist. Nothing happens, but it's strong subtext.   
> Jason has been at the Manor a matter of a few months. He makes the discovery Bruce was a "very troubled teen - publically" (my quote, Bruce says it) at breakfast one day when B doesn't hide zip-tie marks on his wrists. Jason checks the whole house for cutting edges etc and has a breakdown in the kitchen. Alfie helps him out and teaches him the house methods of coping with B's depression.   
> I don't know masses about depression. That's why the update was so long. But I have tried to make it....tactful? in my approach to it. Hopefully none of you found it inappropriate but if so TELL ME because I would hate to portray anything wrong. Thanks.


	3. Jason: "you light my matches"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Water for Chocolate belongs to Laura Esquivel. This arose because I am writing my Spanish essays for tomorrow (I've put it off so long that thinking about the other bit of homework (cursed speaking project) gives me a low scale panic attack) and I got to thinking about saying "you light up my matches" to loved ones. Anyway. Enjoy.

Jason really likes the novel Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquival. He actually read it in the original Spanish, because he prefers things that way. Problem was, it was such a peculiar book he was left hopelessly confused and had to pick up the translation so that he could work out what was metaphorical and what was literal. “It’s just plain weird, Bruce,” he’d complained, “because it’s all like ‘Tita makes food and it makes people sick’ like yeah okay but why???? So had to read it again and I was like ‘oh so it’s magic’ but it’s got flashbacks and just ugh.” Not that Bruce minded his children ranting at him but today he hadn’t any coffee and so couldn’t be held responsible for only taking away the fact Jason’d read a book and found it odd.

Anyway, a few months later Dick and Jason were arguing about something, quite possibly Bruce, because they’d done that a lot recently (not that Bruce knew why, he was fairly sure he was no more unstable than usual) and Bruce heard Jason storm out of the study and scream “Well don’t you put out as many of his matches as you do mine!” on his way out. It had scared him, actually, because Jason actually screamed it the way he used to scream at Bruce or the way Dick screamed at Bruce when they fought all those years ago (they don’t fight as often now. Dick knows that he has to monitor B quite carefully because like hell are losing the emotional and mental progress of recent years) and he thought they were past all that. 

Jason only stayed away for seven or so hours, home in time for patrol. He’d stuck pretty near Bruce, which gave him the chance to ask, “Earlier, Hood, you said something about lighting matches. What did it mean?” Jason grinned the grin meaning “literary analysis on its way”. 

“It’s out of that book, _Como Agua para Chocolate_ , see? So Tita – that’s the main girl – she’s in love with this idiot Pedro right? Well, cutting to the matches bit, she’s sick and the doctor John Brown takes her off _el rancho_ to his house, so she can better. He explains what his _abuela_ told him: inside us we have _fosforos_ , matches, and some people make them wet so they can’t light and others make ‘em burn, ya following? So, like, for Tita her Mamá makes the matches wet, but good ol’ doc dries ‘em out. It’s like, kinda soulmates? Not quite though. Do you get it?”

Bruce nodded. He did. Good people good matches, not so good people bad matches. Simple enough.

“Problem is though,” continued Jason, “that you die if the matches are too wet but you can die if they all light at once. So for Tita, Mamá Elena is killing her because she stops the matches lighting. But Pedro, even though he’s like absolutely –“  
“Jason.”  
“- yeah yeah, anyway, he lights her matches. But he lights all his too fast right? So he dies. So Tita eats the box of matches John gave her and combust. Yeah. Weird. Anyway. Matches.”  
Bruce didn’t get all of that last bit because he hadn’t read the book, but he got the gist.

As they were trickling through the Manor on the way to bed after a comparatively quiet night, Jason caught his wrist. “Dad? You... You light my matches. Love you,” and he ducked into his room to hide the blush. Bruce wasn’t too scared to admit that he couldn’t stop smiling.  
Jason actually said that quite a lot, afterwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the italics work, everything in italics is Spanish. Simple words, but ask and I shall translate.


	4. Jason and Dick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason isn't sure he has a problem with Dick himself.

Jason isn’t entirely sure he has a problem with Dick himself. He knows he has a massive issue with Dick’s actions towards Bruce in the years when Jay was alive and Robin. They’d tried bonding – what, twice? It hadn’t gone amazingly well, he thinks. A tenuous friendship was established, mainly on the principle that if B got too difficult then Jay could camp out at Dick’s for a night or two. If he behaved whilst he was there. Whatever. The point is, whenever Dick showed up he inevitably wound up screaming at Bruce and somehow entirely incapable of registering the agony in Bruce’s every word and muscle. Sometimes the pain is physical, more often it’s mental. They’ve mostly worked through the shouting problems and Jay gets it, he really does, so he finds himself forgiving many occasions. Not too many, though. Less than half. 

Jason knows he will never, ever forgive Dick for _permitting_ knives in the house. Dick hadn’t _missed_ them, hadn’t just _not considered_ there’d be that many, he had explicitly told the Baby Bat he was allowed knives in the house! Loose! How dare he, how dare he endanger Bruce in such a manner. To tempt fate, Bruce himself, in such a manner is more than unfeeling.

Cruel.

Jason has no idea why the Baby Bat was allowed to keep his knives loose after Bruce came back from the dead. Was Dick just so helplessly attached to the kid he couldn’t tell him to move the security measures? Personally Jason hopes so, because the alternative is that Dick just. Didn’t care. Let Bruce be faced with the temptations. No consideration of the consequences or the damage to the family unit he could cause. He wouldn’t survive losing Bruce to that (Jason has no plans of outliving his Dad for long ever again. They go together, or Jay brings Bruce back, or at the very least avenges him) and knowing that Dick was the one who’d allowed the knives. Jay has the uncomfortable knowledge deep in his brain that if it came to it he would kill in retaliation for Bruce’s life. He’d kill just about anyone. His brothers and sisters too, he thinks, maybe-just-maybe if it came to it. Bruce is his planet, Jason the moon, and without his Dad as tether Jay does not exist. Cass understands. She agrees. Nobody else knows, because they don’t understand. Bruce to them is everything, the way that for Alfred the family is everything, the way that for Clark Bruce is everything and something like the world.

Yet.

They have had some good times together and as a family. It’s fun to tag team criminals who are insulting their Dad. That’s a family privilege. Last week, they got ice cream on the way back from patrol and perched high on the gargoyles to eat them, counting the red cars. It’s a game Bruce has played with everyone in their family, and now to play it together? It feels nice. Not transgressive. Not a crime against Jason’s long-held protectiveness. Good, like cookies and the Manor library. Sometimes they have family film nights and everyone bickers like the rowdy siblings they are so they watch Bruce’s film. It’s good.

And some nights, everyone ends up in Bruce’s bed with nightmares ( _sometimes they hear Bruce screaming and everyone panics and they wake him up with a broom_ ) and it’s beautifully peaceful and he has a whole family.

No. He doesn’t have a problem with Dick.

(not all the time anyway)

**Author's Note:**

> Just a mention:  
> Katia, who is referenced in this chapter, is an OC. I made her up and completely ignored what little canon I actually know to do so. She has a backstory etc and will make prodigious appearances in my fics here on in. Keep an eye out, I'll reveal the backstory bit by bit. She may even get her own story.


End file.
